Help Your Enemy?

"When I make my enemy my friend have I not destroyed my enemy?"
-- Abraham Lincoln

Do you have any enemies?

Enemies are hard to deal with. They oppose us. They demonize us. They violate our values and breech our assumptions of peace and healthfulness. They stand in the way. They do us harm.

I do hope you aren't experiencing enemies of that nature. But many people are. What's to be done?

We so often select violence as the solution and yet, how has that worked so far? Any violent solution to an enemy problem simply sows the seeds for future conflict and more enemies.

We can't fight our way out of a fight.

An enemy does not need your help to find a reason to oppose you. They will develop reasons of their own. Challenging those reasons, opposing those view points simply fuel the enmity.

Work the relationship not the reason.

Not easy. Not always possible at first view. Seldom safe. But what if we stayed truly curious about what is going on? What if we listened carefully to the viewpoints of those we seem to disagree with?

I'm not saying to roll over and let the enemy have their way. We must still be strong. We must still show courage. But we could do with some compassion as well.

Fighting escalates more fighting. Getting to know people, respecting their worth as a person (even if they do not appear to deserve it) and forgiving with courage and resolve (not cowardice and capitulation) will take time but in the end do more good and less harm.

Which abrasive relationship of yours do you need to improve? What's your first step?

-- Douglas Brent Smith

Front Range Leadership

Solving Problems | Achieving Your Goals

Comments

There Is No License for Laziness

I like to take a day off once in a while. I enjoy long walks with nothing to do but walk. It's not all about outcomes and goals. But those outcomes and goals ARE still important. We earn our leisure, don't we? The trouble with casual laziness is that it's contagious. And, laziness is persistent. And, before you know it, laziness becomes a way to be. Don't be lazy. (That's me, talking to myself. Listen in if you want to!) I like to come up with crazy ideas. I like to do weird work. I like to take long walks with nothing to think about but thinking. I've lived long enough to be eccentric. But not long enough to be lazy. Now, get busy... -- Doug Smith

The Benefits of Supervisory Training

When was the last time you had any leadership training? How often do the supervisors in your organization get training? If you are like most organizations, it's never enough. Some teams go without any supervisory training at all and expect supervisors and managers to learn as they go, on the job. Unfortunately, while it is memorable to learn from your mistakes, it comes at a high cost. People get tired. People leave. Important accounts go away. Customers complain. And teams struggle without the skills and knowledge it takes to build cohesive teams that are capable of solving problems, improving performance and achieving goals. Admittedly, I can be expected to support training since I'm in the business. Still, take a closer look at your own leadership career and decide for yourself. Are leaders better off with more training and development or with less? Supervisory training can generate benefits that pay off long after the training is over. Here are just a few of the things sup...

Win The Game

It would be nice to win the game. But, do you ever feel like you're in a game that keeps shifting the rules and making it easy to make progress but impossible to win? You've probably noticed lots of game elements creeping into service. Points, incentives, expiring coupons followed by new expiring coupons, leader-boards...on an on a relentless attack on service comes from playing a game designed -- you guessed it -- to maximize profit. If the customer is happy, fine, but the point is to make money. Not to put too fine a point on it but that's a lousy point. What if there could be something better? What if customer service excellence became playing a game where the customer always wins and that makes you happy? You don't have to. "give away the store" to achieve a winning game for all of the players. Just stop stacking the rules against customers and watch how much more they will want to do business with you. -- doug smith

Character Is In The Actions

Some days it's easier to preach than perform. Resist that temptation. Telling people what to do works for a little while, but eventually they are going to watch to see what YOU do. Character, no matter how it is presented verbally, is revealed in action. Kindness is shown by helping. Courage is demonstrated by standing down an evil force or intention. Creativity is demonstrated in the art created, not the art criticized. I've sometimes fallen into the temptation to preach. It comes easy. Opinions just roll off my tongue. But, I'm working on that. Preaching is easy. Performing takes work. Practice build character. Do the practice. -- doug smith

All Edge in Moderation

I once had a boss who, during my performance evaluation, told me that I was doing a good job as a leader but that I needed to develop more of an edge. I wasn't quite assertive enough. She was concerned that people might take advantage of me. I worked on my edge as a result. I sharpened it thru steady practice. I had an edge to end all edges. At the next evaluation, what do you think she suggested? "You need to dial that edge down a bit," she laughed. It's not either/or. Assertiveness is valuable and necessary. Aggression, not so much. You don't have to dull your edge -- just don't cut yourself with it. -- doug smith

Lead with Compassion

Does your team know that you care about them? How do they know? Is it from your flexibility? Is it from your discipline? Is it from the time that you take to talk with each and every one of them on a regular basis? Times are tough for many team members. They are wrestling with issues that we don't even know about, plus some issues that we DO know about. How leaders respond makes the difference between a functional team and a dysfunctional one. Go for the functional, fully moving forward team that delivers on performance. Build trust, build relationships, spend time getting to know your team and letting them get to know you. The payoff is immense. Lead with clarity, courage, compassion, and creativity. If you don't know where to start, start with compassion. Leading with compassion builds trust. And trust propels high performance teams to success. Go for that success. You can do it. You're the boss! -- doug smith

No Complete Failure

"Make failure your teacher, not your undertaker." -- Zig Zigler You know that we can learn from our mistakes. You might also know that failure carries many valuable lessons. I like the expression that comes from NLP (Neurolistic Programing) "there is no failure, only feedback." There's always something to learn. Any effort that results in learning is not a complete failure. So it's up to us. While we would never choose to fail at anything (oh horrors!) sometimes we will. Whether we learn or not is completely up to us. Find the learning. Find the success. What have you learned today? -- Doug Smith

Show Integrity

The goals we seek bring a lot of pull to them. We get wrapped in them. It's useful and it's powerful when we care about our goals so much that they propel us forward and keep us working even when we're tired, beyond the boundaries of our usual limitations. But they should not take us beyond the boundaries of our usual values. They should not trick us into bending the rules just because the rules are in the way. Truly high performance leaders of character who are focused, and centered, and noble maintain integrity. No cheating is ever worth the outcome. Integrity is so rare that many people don't even recognize. If you do, be thankful. We need leaders like you. To truly understand integrity you've got to keep it. Even when it's hard. Even the lines are blurred. -- doug smith

It's More Than Talk

Every conversation is an opportunity to make someone's life better. Take the chance. -- doug smith

Try Not Lying

High performance leaders communicate without lying. That's harder than it sounds. So hard, that hardly anyone ever does it. -- doug smith

High Performance Leadership

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